“founded in a necessity for an open minded space where people could enjoy themselves“

Niederkofler demostrates his visual communication interests in graphic design, animation and illustration through each night at Soul Juice, as he creates and designs artwork that utilises strong line art illustrations, complemented with a candy-like colour palette. His playful approach with his artwork also examples acid house smileys, pizza slices and bowling bowls. These illustrations references Niederkofler’s creative design approach:

“I like to create work that is funny, bold and somehow weird“

From It’s Nice That:

“Asked to contribute by the founders of the collective, its title was the designer’s first creation with the team and raw sketches of a creative direction followed. “The design we chose is influenced by African LP covers and retro games,” he explains.“The graphic is based on a simple grid, creating a modular system that gives me the freedom to create a range of variations.” Each poster is designed around the centre, “always a main element that connects to the collectives name”. From there,“the colour palette refers to the idea of a vibrant environment. The modules are filled with information and secondary elements like patterns and other symbols”.“

What I can take in for inspiration for my own design work is Niederkofler’s creative design approach of: funny, bold and somehow weird. Taking in this approach certainly results in artwork and designs in a playful and fun output. Especially with the use of typography, colour choice and illustration style.

Southbank Centre receives redesigned visual identity from North

Southbank Centre’s in-house design team has worked with North on redesigning the institution’s visual identity. This whole new refreshed identity undergoes a new logotype, design framework and typographic expression. The new visual identity is applied to all aspects of the branding and identity of the institution, which includes signage to tickets, posters and the website.

North’s founding partner Sean Perkins describes that:

“The new identity clearly, confidently and consistently communicates ‘Southbank Centre’ like a title of a magazine – everything else is the weekly, monthly features and highlights, the content.“

With what Perkins describes of about the new visual identity is clearly exampled with the images below, and certainly with the refreshed logotype. The logotype certainly obtains the look and feel of a magazine, especially with how the content for the institution is regulary updated on a weekly basis. The mixture of the instutition’s content with the logotype and new identity, they certainly work seamlessly together.

At the time of writing, Southbank Centre is undergoing a major renovation, so the timing of a new refreshed visual identity works well. With this major renovation in mind, the institution wanted an “impactful and distinctive” new visual language, as well as being the largest and culture and arts centre in Europe. Therefore, the identity redesign opted in for the colour yellow has the core colour identity. This creates a sense of creativity and optimism to the institution and across the visual identity. This works with what the centre is about, culture and arts. With the logotype used, the institution used the Noe Display font (from type foundry, Schick Toikka: “a modern, high-contrast seriffont“) and customised it to visually reference the centre’s iconic building. Southbank Centre also reasons that the customised Noe Display font creates:

“an ownable, recognisable typographic tone of voice“

North’s Charlie De Grussa also says:

“The logotype design and serif font choice was inspired by Southbank Centre’s brutalist architecture and the original Festival of Britain identity.”

What I can take in for inspiration from this new redesign identity for Southbank Centre, is the combination of colour choice, font choice and the actual content from the centre. The smart choice between colour and font, combined with centre’s content seamlessly works well together, providing a comteporary look and feel, which fulfills the centre’s original motive of being impactful and distinctive. Also, what I can take in for inspiration is the considered use of the centre’s iconic building that influence and referenced into the visual identity. This I can take in to help with ideas and concepts.

H.Y.T. Studio showcases Yes Fam! Great graphic design

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Artist and designer, John Slade, showcases his commerical work through the graphic design studio, H.Y.T.. The graphic design studio’s clients revolve around the big names of Tate Modern, Transport for London and Channel Four.

The studio’s aim for their work output is considered to be stylistic choice of Slade’s enjoyment:

“bold, striking, often conceptual graphics and illustrations.“

This aim is evident with the recent works for club night Vesuvio at The Social, run by Heavenly Recordings, a London bar.

The recent works range from posters, flyers, GIFs and stickers, which are all designed and rendered with bright, bold contrasting colours, along with strong use of typography. Vitality is key with these series of works, as utilising a primary colour palette, each of the different works replicates, or even emulates how the feeling and visuals of a club night is like.

Futher works have been included with this series, as H.Y.T. has just opened an exhibition of its own works at The Social, called Pass The Hot Sauce.

The visual feeling and mood of these series of works are contemporary and trendy, and especially how the works are for a night club, this certainly conveys that to the viewer/audience. The works contain simple compositions, simple shapes and lines, which all work towards that feeling of a club night emulation.

What I can take from these works as inspiration for my own work is the strong use of colour, shape and typograhy. These elemements work great together, so taking this into my own work, I will be able to design and create visually and emotionally engaging pieces of design work.

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Tokyo-based designer, Okuyama Taiki has created these experimental, unusual posters, that play with typography, shape and colour. His latest works are available on his blogging site, Nochigo Source, which users are able to download Taiki’s poster work, and edit themselves in their native file formats, .psd and/or .ai. This makes Taiki encourage users to “play freely” with his latest works.

The posters themselves are playful and abstract, covering a minds thought of being creative.

“This pick’n’mix attitude is mimicked in Okuyama’s work with his sporadic use of abstract icons with the odd flash of type that come together to make odd graphic illustrations.“

What I can take from this as inspiration for my own work is the experimental and abstract use of typography, shape and colour. I could use this approach as an alternative, experimental and playful method, when creating posters for a campaign or brief. As well as the still posters, I could also play with the interactivity side, such as the moving image posters that Taiki has produced. This creates and reveals more information, which can be an advantage.

Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra receives rebrand from The Partners

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Working in there New York office, design agency The Partners, has rebranded Brooklyn’s symphony orchestra’s logo, stating that the new logo describes as “music made visual”. The new logo design is a complete overhaul compared to the 2003 logo, stripping the full name and Brooklyn Bridge silhouette, to concentrating on the intials of the name, but with some creative thinking behind the design.

“The design of each letter exemplifies an individual aspect of the orchestra, the agency explains. The blocky “B” is representative of Brooklyn, “robust, industrial and iconic”. The more delicate, serif “S” stands for great music, “elegant, dynamic and expressive”. The “O” is made up of a collection of dots, to symbolise the community of musicians, “convergent, complementary and collaborative”.”

The creative thinking behind the intial letters design is unique and strong, as taking representation for each intial gives the logo some character, and creating a sense of recognition. Each of the letter designs is effective and works well, as each letter does represent the reasoning behind it, from the design agency.

Although the design agency has rebranded Brooklyn’s symphony orchestra, the agency is also working on developing software too. The software is to visualise music interpretations in real time, and so the agency will be creating graphics to go along with that development, as well as the symphony orchestra’s digital platforms.

The design team says that the identity:

“brings dynamism and freshness to the presentation of music that transcends the time it was written“

“The Partners’ work has yielded an exciting, contemporary resource for us, which brings together a graphical logo, and a dynamic use of that logo which the BSO will use in its marketing.“

As well as the rebranded logo, other visuals within BSO has also received an overhaul of wonderful design. Such exmaples include the poster designs and marketing materials. In the poster designs, the use of shape and colour typically reflects on the logo design, symbolic and abstract. The combination of the coomposition, shape and colour, gives the poster design, and the BSO as a whole, a contemporary feel and look, even though the content of the orchestra, is primarily traditional and hundreds of years old. The colour choices and shapes gives the orchestra an opening for a new audience, as well as their exisiting one, as these visuals certainly attract a younger audience.

What I can take from this as inspiration from my own work is the creative thinking behind the logo design, as well as the strong use of shape and colour. Creating represtional symbols in the logo can be a strong effective solution, which I could incorporate into my own logo design projects. As well as the logo, the strong effective use of shape and colour can also be taken into consideration. The shape and colour used in BSO’s poster designs and marketing materials open up the subject and content of the orchestra in a clean and contemporary look and feel. I can use this forward thinking into my own poster and material designs.

NatWest’s redesigned identity and logo, from FutureBrand, returns to the 1968 “cubes”

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Basing on the original 1968 3D logo, FutureBrand has redesigned the renowned bank firm’s visual identity and logo.

The original design of the three interlocking cubes was to represent the fusion of three banks coming together, as the design agency explains, however, the existing logo was a simplified and flattened version of that form.

FutureBrand has revived the original icon back by adding a 3D element to it – the use of shadows to the shapes. As well as the 3D element, the design agency has also consistently used the cube conecpt throughout the identity and branding, keeping it neat and subtle. To supply the new identity and branding visual, an illustrative cuboid typeface has been designed, as well as flat-style illustrations. The cuboid typeface directly links to the icon logo of the 3D element, utilising eye-popping colour. The illustrations and other branding materials utilise the same colour scheme and block-like forms, linking back to the original icon and to keep the sublte consistency.

Dan Witchell, FutureBrand executive creative director and creative lead on the project explains:

“We wanted to create an identity system that was unique to NatWest and to do that we needed a brand asset that was already their own, however hidden or historical,“

Witchell goes on:

“We found the reference to the cubes in the RBS archive from 1968 and it gave us the sort of device we were looking for. It means that even if you don’t see the logo, you see cubes and that tells you instantly that it’s NatWest, a subconscious yet direct link back to the logo.“

The idea and concept of creating the new logo to the original 1968 icon was a strong choice, as the image and visual identity of NatWest is common and well-known now, so many people can easily and quickly identity the firm behind the new 3D logo.

The typeface, illustrations and branding materials are also created strongly in correlation with the new visual identity, as they maintain the visual sense and consistency. They also work great as the colour scheme choice and illustration style gives the bank’s visual identity a modern sense of feel and look – something to attract and engage a young audience to.

What I can take from this as inspiration for my own work is the use of giving a modern look on a existing image. The limited colour choice and illustrations to go with a rebrand/new visual identity can also be taken in to consider and inspire, as these elements for a identity/branding project helps the aim for a firm/brand to be identified.

As well as designing the new visual identity of NatWest, FutureBrand also redesigned the visual identity for the Royal Bank of Scotland. The visual form relates and is influenced from Scottish patterns of tweeds and tartans. Creating a fusion of contemporary and tradition, the new visual identity utilises traditional fabric patterns and contemporary colours, generating its own RBS pattern:

“the Royal Bank tweel… a subtle nod to its Scottish heritage that runs through all brand communications“.

KittoKatsu design agency recreates Düsseldorf’s “Little Tokyo”

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Design agency, KittoKatsu’s Düsseldorf’s Japanese quarter, reimagines the brand image with the use of vibrant and striking imagery and type.

The fusion of Japanese culture and German heritage is visually shown with KittoKatsu’s unique reimagination brand identity. Utilising bold, vibrant and bright colours, the design agency’s colour palette typically reflects the unique identity of the area, along with the accompanying graphics and illustrations. The design agency’s aim with the rebrand identity was to:

“give the district a strong and independent voice that will carry across the city limits.“

Further supporting visuals for the rebrand identity included visual concept of connecting “Little Tokyo” with the wider city of Düsseldorf.

“KittoKatsu is a brand strategy and design agency, based in Düsseldorf. On this project the agency worked alongside graphic designer and illustrator, Lilly Friedeberg.“

The brand identity image is of typical contemporary Japanense graphic design style: bold, bright colours of image and type. Simplicity and repetition techniques are cosistently used throught the identity, to maintain the strong image that rebrand obtains.

The use of bright bold colours makes the marketing materials and posters eye-popping and striking to the viewer, as they tend to conflict and contrast aganist the German architecture, as well as the Japanese culture and German heritage.

What I can take in from KittoKatsu’s rebrand identity for inspirarion into my own work, is the effective and strong use of bold, bright and vibrant colours, used across an array of materials and posters. The colours and bold aesthetics is one key area to how this rebrand image is strong and striking, especially married with the simple and bold graphics, illustrations and typography.